It’s beginning to feel like we’re running out of time, and levels of suppressed panic are rising.

There’s a logical explanation for this phenomenon, of course; we are actually running out of time, and we are really starting to panic.

It doesn’t actually help when Julia keeps inventing new jobs. She’s had me making ginger bread men out of salt dough this morning. She wants them for the TV on Friday. The yellow ones (for which I used yellow food dye and the normal cutter) represent normally-sized people. The blue ones, which I cut by hand, are bigger and represent the obese children in the latest study).

The yellow ones look quite good. The blue ones have turned grey as they have dried out. Next time I colour salt dough I will try paint, but in the meantime I will pretend that I meant them to turn grey.

Later I opened up the new £5 glue gun and stuck the salt dough flower shapes to the bamboo skewers. The result was surprisingly flower-like, though they are a bit top-heavy, even the thinner ones. With a touch of colour and a solid anchorage I’m sure they will form an adequate flower bed for our bread-themed centre piece at the weekend.

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We have a new (athletic) scarecrow, progress on the pigsaw, and a group of new spoon scarecrows.

Outside we have a group of complaining goats (it’s a bit too windy for them), the new pigs are refusing to come out of the ark and the chickens are standing behind any shelter they can find. Open Farm Sunday Forecast – sun, 19 degrees Centigrade and a stiff breeze. Two out of three ain’t bad.

Finally, if you stand by the nestbox outside the centre you can just hear the chirping of newly-hatched blue tits. Watching them puts things in perspective. I think I’ve been working hard, but the blue tit parents haven’t stopped all day.